"That's what we're told," one answered.
"Did your boss tell you about the horses? I mean, I travel by horse. Can you ride?"
The two looked at each other as if to ask, "Ride horses?"
"Stay put. Let me finish this report and I'll give you a quick lesson. It's an all-day ride and we leave tomorrow morning, crack of dawn. Names?"
"Serge," said the first man.
"I'm Pancho. Pancho Guillermo," said the second.
"Can you ride a horse?"
"A little. But not much. I'm guessing Serge here wouldn't know which end goes forward. You better give us a lesson."
An hour later, Gabe finished his report. He, Serge, and Pancho walked out to the auto maintenance garage that had been converted to a horse stall and for the next two hours, Gabe walked them through the basics. Why the Scout/Security Work Unit director sent him these two guys who couldn't ride, Gabe could only guess. Probably because of their obvious physical attributes, he thought. The two of them could clearly overpower anyone. Since becoming a scout two years ago, he had learned not to be picky when he needed security backup and the fact these guys were well endowed for the job was more important than their abilities in a saddle.
As the sun dropped below the roofs, Gabe called it a day and made arrangements to meet the men the following morning.
~ - ~
"We're taking the county roads. No highways. Takes a little longer but I know a way with good water for the horses," Gabe said as they set out early the following morning. The sun had traversed the backside of the earth, as they knew it would without question, and they walked their horses steadily down the city streets as the sun rose in the east. Gabe led the way and, with great effort, managed to trot slowly enough so the others could keep up.
Gabe had given Pancho the GPS tracker as well as the codes for the GPS device on the lab roof and Anthony's ankle ring. Methodically they trotted toward the signals. Gabe periodically pulled his horse to a stop and asked Pancho to check the location of Anthony's ankle ring.
"No change," was the consistent reply.
At about four o'clock, Sandra called.
"Scout 459, this is Scout Operations Desk Work Unit. Sandra. How do you copy? Over." Director Shuh stood next to her so she was careful to use proper radio protocol.
"Sweet new radios, Sandra. You are very clear. What's up?"
"Director Shuh is with me. Wants to speak to you. Over."
"Okay, Sandra. Put him on. Over."
After a few seconds, Shuh said, "Gabe? How are the two men with you?"
"They're hanging in there, but I'm guessing their asses hurt more than they're letting on. These guys are slowing me down a little. We could use a training program."
"We'll talk about that," Shuh said. "Has the target moved?"
Gabe glanced at Pancho, who shook his head.
"No," Gabe said. "No movement. Over."
"Are you getting there tonight?" Shuh asked.
"Doubt it. Tomorrow morning, though. Hopefully. Over."
"You said you could get there in one day," Shuh said.
"I can. As in, I can alone. But not with these guys. Did I mention we could use a rider training program?"
"I said we'll talk about that. Where are you now?" Shuh asked.
Gabe glanced at Serge, who said, "38.962 74.849. Hold on a second." He glanced at his map and his GPS, then said, "Make that 38.963 74.849. Around 42 miles from the target."
Gabe keyed the radio and relayed their location to Shuh. He then said, "We're not getting there tonight. No way."
"Check in with me when you leave tomorrow morning then. At first light or earlier. I want this Anthony Barringer brought in, regulation or no regulation. You got it?"
"I got it," Gabe said. We grab him tomorrow morning, bring him in. No problem. These guys can't ride but I suspect they can handle this guy once we find him."
"I bet they can. Check in tomorrow morning before leaving."
Sandra came back on the radio. "Anything else? Over."
"Nothing else, Desk. Thanks and have a good evening, Sandra. Gabriel Sparrow, Scout 459, Out."
"Will do. Desk out," Sandra said and the radio went silent.
~ - ~
The three men spent the night in a two-story, four-bedroom house with a barn in the back.
"Scout Operations Desk Work Unit, this is Scout 459. Good morning. Anyone there? Over."
Shuh answered within a minute.
"Director Shuh, I didn't expect you to be manning the desk. Over" Gabe said.
"I'm waiting for you."
"Got it," Gabe said and glanced at Pancho. "We'll let you know as soon as we have him. Gabriel Sparrow, Scout 459, Out."
~ - ~
On the 30 mile ride to the office park, Gabe checked four times whether either GPS target had moved. "No change," Pancho reported each time.
They rode into the office park from the rear, crossing the overgrown strip of tall grass that was, before Ebola's rampage, landscaped grass and flowers that separated the building complex from the highway. Some cheerful perennials clung to colorful life among the weeds.
"Silence your radios," Gabe said over his shoulder. "No talking."
Pancho and Serge, who were better at this than perhaps Gabe knew, had already set their radios to silent mode and hadn't said a word since crossing the strip of weeds.
After they crossed the road that ringed the buildings, Gabe dismounted. He turned to tell the two men to do the same, but they were already standing next to their horses. They all tied their horses to a plum tree between the parking lot and the road, and silently checked their assault rifles for ammunition.
They walked along the stucco wall of the building which housed the lab until they came to the front entrance. For the last time, Gabe turned to Pancho and mouthed the question, "Any change?"
Pancho whispered, "No change. Subject is definitely inside the building."
Gabe keyed his radio twice, the prearranged signal to the scout operations work unit that they were on site and were about to take Anthony into their control.
Sandra or Shuh, Gabe didn't know which, keyed the radio twice in reply. On the quietest setting, the reply made a barely perceptible “hiss...hiss” sound.
Serge led the way down the hall, followed by Pancho. They stopped next to the wooden lab entrance door on the right and Pancho gestured that the signal was inside. Each man turned on his rifle's laser sight. Gabe tried the door knob and to his great surprise, it turned. He pushed the door inward.
Chapter 17
In the morning of the same day, Maya woke before everyone else. She put on her swimming suit, descended the stairs, and entered the kitchen. She sat in one of the bar stools at the counter and put small pieces of smoked deer meat in her mouth, washing it down with room-temperature water.
Several minutes later, she pushed away from the counter and went to the pool. Disgusting, she thought. It was covered with grasshoppers, most of which were dead. She walked along the edge of the pavement surrounding the pool until she reached the fence and looked in the coffee can attached to it. It was empty. Of course it's empty, she thought. Pryce was the only one cleaning the pool now, although over the last several days Savane helped him, using a hand-made net she fashioned from some netting she found on the beach.
Well, no matter, Maya thought, and she walked back inside to the window room and sat on the couch. Pryce was awake and in the kitchen.
"Are you guys getting any more tablets today? Those last ones had crappy batteries. Didn't last more than 4 hours."
"Yes, Maya," Pryce said from the kitchen.
"Where's Savane?"
"Sleeping, Maya," he said.
"Why's she still sleeping?"
"I don't know, Maya," Pryce answered.
"Doesn't matter."
"Yes, Maya."
"If you guys are going out for more tablets, forget the pool. I d
on't feel like swimming anyway. Just forget about it for today."
Pryce leaned sideways and looked through the doorway. "You sure?" he asked.
Maya noticed him looking from the kitchen, looked up herself, and told him, "Yup yup. I'm sure. Isn't that a lot of work? Cleaning the pool and then leaving to get tablets and stuff?"
"Well...yes it is. But it's always been a lot of work. Today isn't any different," Pryce said.
"Just forget it. When are you getting back? Make sure it's not too late so you don't miss your transfusion."
"Yes, Maya," Pryce said and stood upright again.
Just then, Savane walked into the window room and sat on the other end of the couch.
"You going out with Pryce?" Maya asked her.
Still more asleep than awake, Savane gave Maya an affirming "hmmmph" in reply.
"Pryce will get you back in time for your transfusion," Maya said.
Savane opened her eyes, lifted her chin, and said, "I'm sure he will, Maya."
"Come on, Savane," Pryce said. "We've got to leave if we're going to have any time in town today. I want to check out some buildings on the other side of town too. Haven't bothered with them before, just a bunch of offices, but you never know. If we have time I'd like to check them out, anyway."
"Good point, good point," Savane said. She slowly pushed herself up and went into the kitchen. She silently sat at the counter, drank a glass of water in three gulps, then picked up a fork and ate some of the smoked salmon left out from yesterday.
"Ready," she called to Pryce. "What town today?"
"I was thinking Wayton. It's a long ride but I'm feeling lucky. Plus there's those office buildings. Like I said, you just never know."
"If you say so," Savane said.
Ten minutes later, the two peddled down the driveway on bikes with empty front-handlebar baskets. Savane wore an empty backpack and Pryce's backpack had a few tools in it.
About 90 minutes after that, they started passing the buildings on the edges of Wayton. They stopped at the Wayton Busy Bee Elementary School and spent about 15 minutes walking through it. They saw no laptops worth taking but they did find four boxes of D batteries in a desk in the main office. Pryce put them in his backpack and they left the school.
Next, they broke through the glass entrance door of a K-Mart, spent about five minutes looking through the electronics department, found nothing, and left.
Pryce suggested they continue working their way through the stores in the direction of the office park so they peddled out of the K-Mart parking lot and turned west. In about five minutes, they came to an office supply store. Letters mounted above the front entrance spelled out "Waverly Office Sup lies". The missing "P" from "Supplies" was resting on the ground at the base of the wall.
The door was unlocked and the two entered. The store was small, about the size of an average 7 Eleven, but along the right wall was a display shelf with printers. Pryce walked to it and Savane followed. Opposite the printer shelf and near the floor, unseen from the entrance, was a glass case containing boxes of cameras and several small laptop computers.
"Stand back," Pryce said, pulled a hammer from his backpack, covered his eyes, and smashed the sliding glass door of the case. "These might have to do. Maya likes tablets but if we can't find any, we can't find any. I've brought these things back and she's okay with them. Here, help me." He handed his backpack to Savane, knelt next to the glass case, and began pulling boxes from it. He handed them to Savane, who opened the boxes one by one, pulled the laptops out, and stuffed them in the two backpacks.
When all the laptops were harvested, Pryce stood up and said, "Good deal. This looks good. At least a week's worth. Hopefully."
"That's all? A week's worth?"
"More or less. It depends on how bored Maya is, how long she spends in the pool. If she gets bored with swimming, sometimes she goes into the window room and wears laptop batteries down one after the other. She can go through 2 a day easy."
"That's a problem."
"You're telling me," Pryce said. "But they keep her happy and the blood flowing. I've come to think of these computers and a clean pool as my life blood. As our life blood."
They carried the two loaded backpacks to their bikes and placed them in the baskets.
"Let's see what's in that office park. You okay with that?"
"I'm okay. I'm okay. Let's go," Savane said and peddled off before Pryce.
Pryce quickly caught up and overtook her just before they turned into the "Williams Landing at the Glen" office park. There was a single circular road, called "Williams Mews" according to the street sign. Each end of this road connected to Williams Boulevard, effectively making a complete circle. Two story stone office buildings lined both sides of the circular road.
"Take your pick. What's your lucky number today?" Pryce asked Savane.
"I'm liking number 4501," she said, pointing to the building they approached on the right.
"Then 4501 it is," Pryce said. He guided his bike off the road and onto the sidewalk, stopping before the entrance. He read each name stenciled on the glass to the right of the door.
"Drs. Capote, Najurumen, and McMurphy, Ob/Gyn. Ceriel Securities Medical Laboratories. Dr. Mark Eratkin, DDS, Endodontist, AAE. BBDO Advertising. I'll admit, this doesn't sound like we're going to have much luck in here. Want to change your mind?"
"Nope. I'm liking 4501. I feel lucky. Plus the numbers add up to 10 and I was born on March 10."
Pryce shrugged his shoulders, picked up a rock about the size of a grapefruit, threw it through the glass door, and stepped through.
Savane, right behind him, pulled on the door handle and it swung outward.
“You know, you should really check a door before throwing rocks through it,” she said with a smile.
“Point taken,” he replied from inside.
They walked into the foyer, which was open to the second floor. With Pryce leading the way, they walked through the central hallway, past several locked doors. As they walked, Pryce tried each door handle. None turned until he reached the third door on the right, marked "Ceriel Securities."
He glanced at Savane with a smile and said, "Unlocked. Let's check it out." They entered what appeared to be a visitor's reception area. A low counter to the right of the door was apparently where a secretary or receptionist once sat. To the left was a ring of very dusty chairs and a couch surrounding an equally dusty coffee table. Pryce and Savane walked past the receptionist's counter and entered an inner hallway. It extended to the back of the building and terminated at a wall with a low window.
Savane pushed past Pryce, entered the hall, and skipped down the middle, giggling until she reached the window. Although it was quite dirty, she could still make out four very distinct shapes just outside.
"Hey Pryce, what's this?" she said.
He walked down the hallway, shaking his head and smiling. "Do you have to always fool around?" he asked. "What's what?"
"That what," Savane said. She turned a handle on the bottom half of the window and tilted it open to get a better look.
"Dunno," Pryce said, bending slightly at the waist and looking through the opening. "Let's check it out. Come on." He walked back up the inner hallway. When he reached the reception area, Savane ran past him and exited into the building's central hallway first. She turned down the central hall toward the back of the building, skipping until she reached a gray metal door marked "Emergency Exit Only." She pressed on the door's horizontal bar and leaned forward. The door opened directly onto a weedy patch of dirt and Savane stuck her head out.
"Here they are," she said.
"Here are what?"
"Some kind of tanks."
Pryce maneuvered around her, found a stick and placed it in the doorway to prevent the door from closing, and stepped outside. To the right of the exit, standing on a cement slab that abutted the back wall, were four rusting s
ilver-colored tanks, each about five feet tall. They were surrounded by a chain link fence. Just above them was the window which Savane had opened from the inner hallway. Pryce pulled a small set of bolt cutters from his backpack, clipped a vertical slot in the fence and squeezed through. Savane followed. She walked up to the first tank on the right and put her harms around it.
"I can just barely reach around. What are these things?"
Two diamond shaped signs were attached to each tank but they were too dirty to read. Pryce cleaned one off with his sleeve until he could make out a white flame drawn on a red background. He cleaned a second sign just below this one. It also had a red background and large, capital white letters which spelled out "LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS."
He spit on his thumb and cleaned off a round gauge. Under the grime he saw what looked like a speedometer that went from 0 to 60. In the center, in small lower case letters, were the letters "psi". The gauge's needle sat at 45.
"Savane, do you know what you've found?"
"No idea," she said.
"Liquified natural gas. Heavy as hell but if we can get one of these tanks back to the house, we'll be rich. Rich. We could do all kinds of stuff with this. Cook. Warm showers. I'd have to figure out how to tap into it but..." Pryce trailed off as his thoughts overtook his words. "Savane, you are a genius. A genius. Born on March 10 you say? Very lucky indeed," Pryce said, smiling wider than Savane had ever seen.
At that moment, the first of the thousands of grasshoppers in the approaching swarm slammed against the tanks. They sounded like popcorn, starting slowly but growing in frequency until the sound of each bug hitting the tanks, the walls, and the open window merged into a continuous note.
"Time to go!" Pryce said, yelling louder than he needed to.
"Yup yup! Don't tell me twice!" said Savane as she laughed and ran into the building's back door.
Chapter 18
Gabriel Sparrow, Scout 459, gently pushed open the Transfer Medical Laboratories entrance door and stepped into the first room. He walked through, then waited at the inner door until Pancho and Serge caught up. He put his hand on the inner door's handle when he felt his right shoulder being pushed down sharply. Reflexively, he tilted his shoulder down to get away from the pain. He turned around, uttered "What the..." and saw Serge tapping him on the shoulder with his index finger.
"Step aside," Serge whispered to him. Gabe did so. Serge and Pancho glanced at each other. Pancho whispered "On one?" Serge nodded and Pancho mouthed "Three...two...one."
The Fallujah Strain: Power After the Ebola Apocalypse Page 7